


Vive La

by voleuse



Category: Battlestar Galactica
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-25
Updated: 2005-08-25
Packaged: 2017-10-04 11:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They survive because they have to survive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vive La

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through 2.05.

The Buccaneers haven't made it to the Colonial Championships in three years, not since Mason and Boz went into retirement. Now, they have one and a half months until the new season starts, Maria's three weeks pregnant, and Harper's just been traded to Saggitaron.

One night, after another disastrous practice, Anders finds Sue-Shaun in the locker room and slumps onto a bench.

"We're getting too old for this," he groans, eyeing the new players as they tromp towards the showers.

Sue-Shaun yanks her T-shirt over her head. "Speak for yourself," she retorts. "I could still slam a shot past you with a hangover and sprained wrist."

He laughs. "Just that one time."

"They're not bad players." She sits next to him, laces up her boots. "Just need more training."

"Not much time." Anders rubs his shoulder, the one that got sprained two seasons ago. "You think we can whip them into shape?"

"Maybe." She kicks her locker shut. "I'll talk to Coach."

*

 

Ten-Point stretches under the trees, tosses a glare at Anders. "I hate the mountains," she grumbles. "No decent coffee."

"Coach's idea," Anders claims, and Sue-Shaun snorts, tosses a fist-sized rock at his head.

He catches it, then drops it, shakes his hand out. Jo-Man mumbles something, and Anders points at him. "Picon. Ten seconds till. Who dropped it then?" Jo-Man drops his eyes.

Anders digs a ball, tosses it to Sue-Shaun. "There's a court here, right?"

She jerks her head northwards. "That way. Half-hour, if we run."

"All right." Anders looks at the rest of the team, pausing to stare at the rookies. "You heard the lady. Run."

They set off at a slow jog, and Sue-Shaun shoulders her backpack, hands Anders his.

"I hate running," he mutters to her, when the others are out of earshot.

"I know," she replies.

*

 

She thinks it's a thunderstorm at first, the flash and the booming.

Then Ten-Point screams, and Rally grabs her elbow.

She stares at the clouds until her eyes dry out.

"That can't be real," she says. "It can't be."

But the blasts get closer, and Anders hits her on the shoulder.

"Run."

*

 

Their cabins are high in the mountains, and the blasts never reach them.

Night descends, and Caster is fiddling with a radio, trying to find something, anything but panic.

She leans against a wall, and Anders comes over, slouches next to her.

"What do we do?" he says.

She closes her eyes. "Hell if I know."

*

 

It's two days before Caster gets a signal on the shortwave, contact with someone else, someone not dead and gone in the attack. Someone close.

Caster, Jo-Man, and Morris think it could be a trap. Ten-Point and Rally argue it's their only chance. Grip Key's still sitting, stone-deaf, in the corner. His kid was in Caprica City.

Anders looks at Sue-Shaun, and she nods.

"Let's go."

*

 

Slowly, they hook into other groups of survivors.

A couple, gone camping for their honeymoon. Six Colonial Fleet wannabes. A mumbling oracle on pilgrimage. A scattering of survivalists, the kind who carry shotguns and stockpile rations in moldy caves.

And seventeen people who fled the attacks, with only the clothes on their backs and the fear in their eyes.

For days, they're just a collective of survivors, huddled together and whimpering. But they get hungry, and they can't stay in caves forever, and Anders is used to giving orders.

He's surprised when people begin to take them.

Sue-Shaun smacks him in the shoulder and tells him not to screw things up. "Do I ever?" he asks, and manages to gloss the words with pride.

She rolls her eyes, and ignores the fear beneath it.

*

 

They descend from the mountain to loot a trading post, one of those stores that exists solely to supply hunters during deer season.

The door creaks open, and Sue-Shaun exchanges a glance with Anders. He takes point, crouches to creep into the room.

"Stop!" A man emerges from behind a shelf, pointing a pistol at Anders' head. "Who are you? What do you want?"

Anders stands slowly, raising his hands. Sue-Shaun drops her borrowed rifle, wincing as it hits the ground.

"Slow down," Anders barks out. "We're survivors, just like you."

The man eyes them, but lowers his gun. "I haven't seen anyone since the bombs hit."

"We hid up in the mountains," Sue-Shaun explains. "We're just looking for supplies."

The man smiles, hopeful. "There are more of you?"

"Almost sixty, right now," Anders tells him. He holds out his hand. "I'm Anders. This is Sue-Shaun."

"Name's Conoy." He shakes Anders' hand. "Good to meet you."

*

 

The group's getting too large, now, sprawling over their original encampment. The stock they get from Conoy's store, and a few others, is going to run out soon.

"I know a place," Conoy tells them. "A few miles away. Old military base."

Anders nods. "Okay. We'll send a small scouting party, check it out."

Sue-Shaun tries not to look at the way his fingers twitch, a gesture only she knows signals a feint.

He glances at her. "You up for it?"

"Yeah." She shrugs. "We should take Morris along. And Caster's a good shot."

"Okay." Anders grabs his gun. "Lead the way, Conoy."

*

 

The building is large, square, and definitely military.

Anders wriggles over to where Sue-Shaun is lying in the grass.

"What do you think?" he whispers.

"Could be," she starts, then gasps as she spots movement.

And out of the warehouse come Conoy and a girl, both wearing Colonial Fleet uniforms. The girl is slim, pretty, and expressionless. Conoy looks much cleaner than he did ten minutes ago.

She looks at Anders, who's looking at Conoy, five yards back and crouched by a tree.

"Frak," she curses. "Frakking hell."

And six Cylon centurions clank out of the warehouse to join the other Conoy and the girl.

Anders turns swiftly and shoots at Conoy, missing once, then hitting him in the thigh.

"Anders!" Morris hisses. "What the frak?"

The Cylons start firing, and Sue-Shaun lunges back. Caster gets two shiny new holes blasted through his forehead.

"Back!" Anders yells. "And hold onto him!"

They flee.

*

 

They manage to evade the Cylons, and Conoy babbles on and on about consciousness, and souls, and living forever.

"You set us up," Sue-Shaun accuses, and she can still see Caster's wide eyes, and there's a thick spatter of blood on her arm.

"It's God's will," Conoy says. "Humanity's time has ended."

"You're a Cylon?" Anders chokes out, then Conoy lunges at him, lightning-quick.

Sue-Shaun puts a bullet through his neck, and aims another at his heart, for good measure.

"Thanks," Anders gasps.

She nods, and Morris vomits into a bush.

*

 

When they get back to camp, they don't tell anyone what really happened, except for the team. They tell the others there was an ambush, it's not safe here, and they need to move out.

Jo-Man pulls Sue-Shaun and Anders aside, hands her Caster's shortwave. "Got another signal. We found more survivors, outside of Delphi."

Anders leans against her, his arm heavy against hers. She squeezes his hand, then releases it.

"We'll go to them," she says.

*

 

They find the Delphi group at an abandoned school. (She doesn't ask them where the students went.) They have food, anti-radiation meds, and best of all, three transport trucks.

They scrounge out whatever rooms are left, meet with the Delphi leaders, a civics professor and a former EMT.

"Thank the gods you arrived," the professor says. "We've been safe here, but we're running out of meds."

Anders raises his eyebrows. "What do you think we can do?"

"You've been out there." The EMT coughs, a hacking, wet sound. "You weren't close to the nukes when they hit. And you know how to handle weapons. We don't." He coughs again, and the professor rubs small circles against his back.

Sue-Shaun looks away from intimate gesture.

The professor looks up again, his eyes troubled. "There are hospitals. Munitions depots. If we could raid those, we could get enough to survive. Longer."

Anders sighs, braces his hands against the table.

"I hope you've got a better plan than that."

*

 

The first and second missions go off without a hitch. Minimal Cylon fire, maximum gain. They lose a couple of people, but it's expected.

The third time doesn't go so well, and they lose seven people.

The fourth time, it goes worse, and that's when Sue-Shaun gets separated from the group, cornered by two centurions.

She hears Anders scream her name, and another centurion appears. She tags one in the head, but it doesn't go down. Something sharp stabs into her calf.

"Go!" she shouts. "You've got the meds, _go_!"

But Anders runs in, and the others follow him, and a dozen of them fall before the Cylons go down.

Anders almost slings her over his shoulder, drags her back to the truck.

Everything goes dark after that.

*

 

Nineteen. They lost nineteen, and it could have been half that, if frakking Anders hadn't gone back for her.

After her leg gets wrapped and the meds are distributed, she finds Anders outside and slams him into a fence.

"Don't make it about me," she snarls. "Don't you _ever_ make it about me."

"Sue--"

"No." She steps back, and the gash in her leg is pounding. "Nineteen people, Anders. Nobody's worth that. Not ever."

Anders looks at the ground.

"You got that?"

"Yeah." He looks away. "Got it."

"Good." She breathes deep, puts out an arm. "Now help me back to the mess. My leg is frakking killing me."

He raises his eyebrows. "Don't tell me you're getting soft."

"Yeah." She winces when she puts weight on her injured leg. "But I could still kick your ass."

Anders laughs. "I believe it."

"You'd better," she replies.

They make their way back inside, and they lean against each other.


End file.
